Red Hat has unveiled an initiative dubbed 'Security in a Networked World' at the LinuxWorld tradeshow in San Francisco.
As part of the programme, the Linux vendor showcased its Red Hat Certificate System that allows organisations to manage security certificates used to sign emails, or authenticate users for online banking applications. It also supports authentication through the use of smartcards.
Red Hat has been working with the Apache Foundation to add support for the Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client through the use of Apache's open source Network Security Service Libraries.

The collaboration will allow users of both systems to send and receive authenticated emails with Thunderbird, while organisations including online banks and web stores can use the system to authenticate users through smartcards in combination with Firefox.